


Provably Qualified

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [142]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Family, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Sass, Snark, Star Wars AU - Soft Wars, brothers being brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29477625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: Domino Squad is entirely qualified to watch the Littler Twins
Series: Soft Wars [142]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 23
Kudos: 293





	Provably Qualified

**Author's Note:**

> For [@lumateralibrarian](https://lumateranlibrarian.tumblr.com/) 's prompt of Domino Squad meeting the Skywalker twins. Turned out to be more Domino Squad than Meeting but there you go

“I don’t mean to shine my own shell-”

“Is that a euphemism?”

“Shut up Cutup.”

“Oh hey that rhymed.”

“ _Shut up Droidbait_.” Fives stops his pacing, nonplussed. “What was I saying.”

“Shining your own shell,” Echo offers.

“ _Shining my shell_.” Fives twitches. “Okay yes that does sound bad.”

“ _Right_?”

“Shut – _cork it_ Cutup. The point I’m trying to make -”

Hevy leans down over the edge of the his shelf and whispers loudly. “He has a _point_?”

“Even odds,” Echo decides.

“You are all horrible children,” Fives declares, a favorite parting tease from the former Generals of Quake Company. Domino Squad, as one, beams and titters various incarnations of ‘Thanks!’ and ‘Yay!’ and ‘The Process Is Working!’ “I swear every single ounce of goo in the batch but mine was curdled,” he continues, a favorite insult of his own.

“Aww,” Hevy calls, “don’t be like that Fiv’ika!”

“Yeah,” Cutup agrees, “I’m sure your tube was just as rancid!”

“If not worse,” Fives own basically-twin adds. Droidbait shoots double fingerblasters.

Ugh. Fives hates them all. He tries not to grin. “This squad is a mess.”

They all cheer. Fives sighs and hitches a shoulder up on the wall and waits for them to wind it down.

They’ve all got rooms of their own, technically. Far as they can figure (that is, as far as Echo’s read) that’s how natborn housing is typically laid out: everyone has a personal room (or a couple double up, if it’s small) where they store their stuff, and then there’s one big room in the middle where everyone actually lives. Fives doesn’t much see the point of the having all those extra rooms -

(‘Nookie nooks,’ Cutup had declared authoritatively and they’re all _still_ giving him shit for that.)

\- and it’s a little bit of a hassle to drag bedding back and forth between them and the living room every night. But Echo and DB are determined to Try That Kind Of Life and it’s not a _huge_ imposition. There’s nowhere to be today though, and while half of them have bothered with showering and putting on more than pants, none have mustered up the multitensils to drag the bedding back.

Cutup has starfruited across three cushions, four pillows and at least two blankets. Echo is wrapped firmly in half of a blanket Cutup is otherwise claiming and is determinedly maintaining custody. Hevy’s kicked all but one of his pillows off his shelf, and he and his blanket are half melting off the side.

Droidbait has been up for hours. He’s gotten sonicked and changed into a warm, bright jumpsuit, and is munching through breakfast grains and giggling to a holocartoon in a language Fives can’t identify. Must be a new one: he’s usually only on the younglings’ shows for a month or so before he can switch to sitcoms. By the time he can follow newscasts in the language he’s generally already bored of the whole thing.

“Alright,” declares Hevy, “alright you hooligans.”

Cutup and Echo hiss insults at each other.

“Shinies!” The last of Hevy’s pillows blats accurately across Cutup’s face to bounce precisely square in Echo’s. “Simmer down. Fives has something he would like to say.”

They tease and mock and poke and maybe they’re not even a squad anymore but a family, but Hevy’s still Hevy. They’ll tease and joke but they all settle down obediently and turn attention to Fives.

He’d better make it quick. No way it’ll last. Cutup is already surreptitiously poking a toe at Echo’s hip.

“I’m just saying we’re all of us mature, responsible soldiers _shut up Cutup we are_. Look, we can fake it long enough to be ARC’s alright? I’m just saying I think we could fake it long enough to babysit.”

And now, _now_ he _actually_ has their attention.

“Babysit,” Droidbait muses.

“The Littler Twins,” Fives clarifies, though he doesn’t really have to.

Droidbait lowers his pad and casts an assessing eye around their living room. “Here would be safe enough," he muses. "We don’t keep weapons out.”

“We don’t,” Fives agrees, “not after that time-”

“That didn’t happen,” Echo cuts in with a blistering glare. Fives lifts his hands in smiling surrender.

“That time that didn’t happen,” Fives appeases. “Floor’s plenty soft in here already, and we can even leave the bedding down. Everything else is up against the wall so they won’t crash into anything. Cutup knows food.”

“Echo’s researched more on child development than most reproducing sentients,” Hevy offers. “And I have tons of experience wrangling tublings.”

They boo and pelt him with pillows. Droidbait kindly passes Fives one to participate. Hevy cackles and collects as many as he can snatch for ammo later.

“Everything I’ve read,” Fives presses on before the room devolves, “seems to say that ‘crying and needing something’, ‘crying and not needing anything except to maybe be hugged’, ‘not dropping them', and ‘getting their lowers changed when they’re soiled’ are the hardest parts of watching someone’s kids for a while.

Cutup frowns, considering. “And that’s it?”

“Well and if they get sick, but at that point we’d just call a professional.”

There’s a ton of stuff out there, joke images and stand-up comedy and the like, about people being inept at handling natborn tubies. Usually males. Fives really doesn’t see why they’re making it out like it’s harder than it is.

“Five of us, plus Kix if they’re sick,” Droidbait says and he’s all eager enthusiasm. “We can handle that.”

“What do we need?” Hevy asks and Fives grins.

“Very coincidentally, I have here a list of reasons-”

“Give it,” Echo demands and Fives is handing it over before he’s even thought.

“Echo, mock us up a justification for the Captain,” Hevy orders, as though Echo isn’t halfway through repurposing request forms and plugging in Fives’ list. “Cutup, figure out what babies eat-”

“Trust me,” Cutup smarms but rolls to his feet anyway. “Anakin and I have _thoroughly_ investigated what babies eat. Going shopping, comm me if there’s anything we need immediately.”

“I’ll find entertainment!” Droidbait chirps before he’s even assigned anything.

Hevy and Fives meet eyes. “Toys,” Fives offers. Hevy twitches.

“The Mall,” he sighs, the way some vode say ‘Felucia’ or ‘swampfoot’.

“Kot,” Fives grins and taps his wrist twice. “It’s not that bad.”

“It’s a wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

“And worker exploitation,” Echo murmurs, distracted. "Minimum wage is practically criminal."

Okay. Okay that’s not great. That particularly doesn’t feel like something he wants to support. “I’ll ask Dogma if he suss out any local craftsbeings the Guard know.”

Domino Squad, as one, snorts. Like that’ll be hard. Dogma’s got that Blockade wrapped right around his gauntlet, no lie.

Fives comms Dogma; Hevy peels himself off into the sonics and digs for uppers. Domino Squad falls on their tasks like mission prep.

Fives opens the front door to very nearly a kick to the shin.

“Oh good,” the Captain, _Rex_ says casually as if he’s not got a double handful of the youngest Torrents and a boot banging at their door. “Sorry to impose on your day off, but would you-”

Fives very, very gently steals himself an armful of Tiny General. “Hi,” he says to her scrunch-faced skepticism. His voice sounds breathy and stunned to his own ears. “Hi Leia. Hello.”

Hevy’s got Luke’s head resting against inside his elbow and he grins helplessly down at the gummy smile.

“That answers that,” Rex drawls, but his lips turn up soft.

“Cutup’s gone for baby food,” Echo informs and neatly relieves Rex of the helmet-patterned bag Fives didn’t even notice he’d been shouldering. He tucks it inside the door. “And DB has age-appropriate educational programming.”

“They have everything they need in the bag,” Rex protests.

“Just in case,” Echo insists because he was stubborn to start with and Rex only ever made that worse. “Thanks we’ll see you later Fives let me hold her.”

“Soon.”

“Hevy-”

“Ask Fives.”

“Institute a rotation,” Rex orders and Fives will definitely get right on that. “Instructions and everything else is in the bag. I’ll be back in about four hours.”

“Don’t rush,” Hevy mutters. Luke gnaws at Hevy’s thumb and coos. Hevy will be about as diligent about that rotation as Fives will.

They have a couch, because they've read that living rooms have one, pushed up against the wall with everything else that isn't for sleeping. Now Fives figures out why. It’s so much easier to ease down into a couch seat without disturbing an infant than it would be to drop to the floor. Echo graciously flicks Rex out the door and flutters over to hover at Fives’ elbow. Hevy walks circles, Droidbait right on his instep. He makes faces and Luke spittily burbles something close enough to a laugh. Someone taps away at a comm and they all know Cutup will be back here terrifyingly quickly, if one stops to consider what air laws he'll break on the way.

Fives rubs a finger from a scrunchy brow, back all the way over wispy brown hair. It’ll probably all fall out soon, Fives has read, and then grow back. He’s read a lot of things. Would have, even without Anakin frantically consuming every authoritative source on babies. These are _Torrent’s_ babies; every vod of them knows their responsibility to care and protect.

Leia makes a belly-deep grumble. She wriggles around and drops her head to Fives’ shoulder with a full-body sigh. Fives can feel his eyes go huge and shimmering.

Kark rotations. Fives is never letting her go ever.


End file.
